


built like cities

by floraltohru



Category: Fruits Basket, Fruits Basket (Anime 2019), Fruits Basket - Takaya Natsuki (Manga)
Genre: Bisexual Male Character, Clock Metaphors, Coming Out, Confessions, First Kiss, Late Night Conversations, Love Confessions, M/M, Making Out, Nail Polish, Oblivious Yuki, Or Are They Early Morning Conversations?, Pining, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-04-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23861581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floraltohru/pseuds/floraltohru
Summary: Yuki fixates on Kakeru's chipped nail polish at some unholy hour of the night.---"If pinned down, Kakeru is a 3:47am friend, a witching hour companion, a dark-of-night conspirator, which is how Yuki finds himself leaning against the jagged brick wall of some 24-hour convenience store at an hour when nothing and no one should actually be awake."
Relationships: Manabe Kakeru & Sohma Yuki, Manabe Kakeru/Sohma Yuki
Comments: 26
Kudos: 127





	built like cities

**Author's Note:**

> *blows kiss into the night* this one's for my Yukeru stans

The small hands point to the hours. The large hands point to the minutes. The thin hand marks the seconds, ticking in perpetuity. And time marches on.

Yuki could fit his people into the clock face as easily as the hours. 

Tohru. 7am. She's the only person who can tolerate him that early, graciously pressing a coffee into his hands so he can function like a human. 

Kyo. 10am. He's only made his way onto the clock after a couple years of good behavior and Tohru's positive influence, positioned at a particularly non-offensive hour, and still not always every day. 

Kimi. Noon. Late enough that Yuki is fully awake, but not so much that he's already tired.

Ayame. He doesn't have a set hour on the clock. Yuki couldn't handle him that regularly. But if pressed to find a place for him, Ayame is once a month or so at 2pm, a nondescript hour for his all-too-descript brother. 

Hatsuharu and Momiji. 5pm. After school, when he's in good enough spirits that he doesn't mind their antics. 

Shigure. 8pm. If he's lucky. Right after dinner, when Yuki is well-fed and a little drowsy.

Machi. 11pm. Late night tutoring and student council planning, sleep-deprived jokes and her dry wit in the meeting room. 

Almost everyone in Yuki's life exists within the confines of polite, civil, sociable hours. Almost. 

Kakeru Manabe has only ever almost fit anything, at best. 

If pinned down, Kakeru is a 3:47am friend, a witching hour companion, a dark-of-night conspirator, which is how Yuki finds himself leaning against the jagged brick wall of some 24-hour convenience store at an hour when nothing and no one should actually be awake. 

Kakeru's nails are painted black and they reflect the streetlights like stars when he brings his cigarette to his lips for another drag.

The polish is chipped. Yuki wonders if that's on purpose. Kakeru does that sometimes, little things. Missed buttons and wrinkled sweaters and mismatched socks. 

If it's intentional, what's the process? Does he paint them haphazardly, only half paying attention during one of his sincere, long-winded, never-stopping-to-take-a-breath phone rambles to Yuki? Or does he painstakingly apply the polish, then break off minuscule flakes until his nails are perfectly imperfect? 

"Oh shit, I'm being rude," Kakeru says, and Yuki realizes that while he's been musing about the state of his friend's painted fingernails, Kakeru has been staring out into the night, babbling about something or other, filling up the silence. 

"Huh?" Yuki says articulately. 

Kakeru brandishes his cigarette, offering it to Yuki. Then he withdraws it, clapping his free hand to his forehead. "Right, forgot, you don't smoke, lung thing." 

He finishes off his cigarette - by himself - and snubs the smoldering end of it into the brick wall. "What are you thinking about, Yun-Yun?" 

"Nothing," Yuki says coolly. 

Kakeru leans up against Yuki so their sides are flush. "You're being really quiet," he murmurs, and Yuki can feel Kakeru's warm breath on his cheek. 

"Yeah, well, you talk enough for the both of us," Yuki says, rolling his eyes. He leans away, feeling cold where he's no longer pressed against Kakeru. 

"You didn't have to come, Mr. President," Kakeru points out, and he's right. Yuki did make an active series of decisions that led him here, freezing his ass off under the hazy glow of the street lamps. 

Yuki shrugs. "I didn't really have anything better to do." 

Kakeru checks his watch - a little plastic digital one themed for some kids' show or another - and scoffs. "At a quarter 'til four in the morning? Do you like, I don't know, sleep?" 

"Sometimes," Yuki tells him, noncommittal. 

"C'mon, admit it. You like me. We're friends," Kakeru needles. Yuki slaps away his hand when Kakeru attempts to poke him in the side. 

"Of course we're friends," Yuki says, stifling a yawn. Contrary to what he'd have Kakeru believe, he does sleep, and was in fact making a valiant attempt to do just that when Kakeru called him. 

"Well that's a relief," Kakeru says. "I've shared some pretty intimate stuff for you to just be an acquaintance." 

"Is there something on your mind, Kakeru?" Yuki asks pointedly, and maybe it's the hour and maybe it's the street lights and maybe it's the nail polish but something is making him feel vulnerable, earnest, and he wonders if Kakeru is feeling the same way. 

"Not really."

"Why did you call?" 

"No reason."

"Last time it was because you visited your father," Yuki points out. "And I think before that you called because Maki broke up with you."

"I don't need a reason, okay?" Kakeru says, and even though he's still smiling, his words catch like a hangnail on loose thread. "Sorry," he murmurs, then he jostles Yuki's shoulder. "Just want to hang out with my best friend. Is that a good enough reason?"

Yuki pulls the sleeves of his sweater down over his hands. He hadn't realized Kakeru had intended for them to linger outside of the store for God knows how long while he smokes, and Tohru would panic if she knew he left his coat at home, thrown over some pile or another in his room. 

"Chilly?" Kakeru asks. 

"Well, it is the middle of the night in March," Yuki points out. 

"Here." Kakeru shrugs off his denim jacket.

It smells like cigarette smoke and Kakeru's body wash and fresh air. Yuki tries not to breathe too deeply, lest he suffocate. 

"Won't you get cold?" Yuki asks, but he's pulling the jacket on before waiting for an answer. 

Shrugging, Kakeru unwraps his flannel shirt from around his waist, pulling it on over his faded band T-shirt. "Nah," he says. "I've got the whole bisexual layers thing going on, so I don't really get cold."

Yuki suspected as much, but it's different to hear it said out loud. It feels like Kakeru is testing the waters, dropping his sexuality like that in conversation; but then again, maybe he really is just that casual about it. Kakeru is painfully casual about most things 

"How did you know?" Yuki sticks his hands into the pockets of Kakeru's jacket, his fingers brushing up against a lighter in one and an assortment of candy wrappers in the other. 

"That I like dressing in layers?" Kakeru teases, bumping their shoulders together, but he doesn't move away. He stays there like that, pressed up against Yuki's side again. 

"I'm going to drop kick you into next week," Yuki grumbles, but his bitten-off yawn negates most of his threat. 

"I don't think there was one thing," Kakeru explains, sobering. "It's not like God shouted at me from the sky like, 'congrats, you're not straight!' I guess I just started taking notice of people who weren’t girls. I’m no genius, but I put it together pretty quick.” 

So it seems Kakeru approaches his sexuality with the same laissez-faire attitude with which he approaches most things. Yuki isn’t surprised, exactly. Though he does wish his own feelings were that simple. 

Kakeru studies Yuki harder than he’s ever examined his schoolwork. When he doesn’t say anything else, Kakeru says, “So maybe I lied, a little.” 

“Oh?” 

“But only a little. I did want to hang out with my best friend. But I also sort of wanted to talk to you about…” He waves his hand noncommittally. “You know. That.” 

“It doesn’t change the way I feel about you. You’re still my friend.” 

“Oh.” Kakeru is quiet for a moment. It’s perhaps the longest he’s ever shut up since Yuki’s known him. “Good,” he says at last, but his voice is half a pitch too high. 

“Something wrong?” Yuki asks. 

“No, no. Everything’s great.” And it’s there, just below the surface, that hitch in his voice. 

“Is it? Because it still seems like there’s something on your mind.” 

Kakeru scuffs his shoe at the pavement, marking the toe of his shoe with a dark smudge. “No, it’s fine. I’m glad we’re friends.” 

“Hey.” Yuki elbows Kakeru in the side. “Tell me the truth.” 

He’s uncharacteristically quiet as he looks up into the night sky, biting his lip. “I wish I had another cigarette,” he murmurs finally, and Yuki is surprised at how nervous he sounds. 

“Are you alright?” 

“Yeah, fine. But, see, okay, here’s the thing.” Kakeru runs a shaking hand through his hair. “I like you? Like, yeah, I know we’re best friends. And I’m like, totally fine just being friends. But I would feel like I was lying to you if I didn’t tell you that I’m sort of actually in love with you and I have kind of had a massive dumb puppy-dog crush on you since the moment I met you in the student council room.” 

“Oh.” 

“Well, glad that’s out in the open.” Kakeru pretends to glance at his watch before pushing off away from the wall. “Look at the time, I’m just going to-”

“Kakeru.” Yuki grabs him by the wrist. 

“Yeah?” And his voice is so raw that Yuki can almost feel it like a physical scrape. 

“I like you too.” 

“Really?” 

“It’s all a little confusing,” Yuki admits. “But I do like you.” 

Kakeru throws his arms around Yuki, who flinches at the touch before relaxing against him. And when they pull away, Kakeru looks atypically shy. “Yuki?”

“Yeah?” 

“Can I kiss you?” 

Yuki doesn’t trust himself to speak, so he nods instead. 

Kakeru leans in. This is not casual. But then, this is not most things. 

When Kakeru kisses Yuki, he tastes like cigarettes and the peach gummy candies they bought before coming out to smoke. 

Yuki keeps his firm grip on Kakeru's flannel sleeves even when they finally pull apart for air. 

"Wow, that was…" Kakeru's words come out in a breathless laugh, and Yuki keeps kissing him before he can finish his thought. 

He could really do this at any hour. 

Kakeru pulls him around to the side of the building, away from the exposing lights lining the street and the neon of the convenience store. In the dark of an alley, he slides his frigid hands up Yuki's back, under his favorite sweater, and pulls him in again. 

With one of Kakeru's legs pressed in between his own, Yuki can't even bring himself to care that he keeps smacking the back of his head against the wall. He does nearly melt, though, when Kakeru slides a hand up the back of his neck, threading through Yuki’s silvery hair and cushioning him from the bricks. He deepens the kiss, nicking gently at Kakeru’s lips with his teeth. Kakeru sighs out a laugh against him and pulls away, dropping his head to Yuki’s shoulder. 

“You’re perfect,” he murmurs, “but we should probably pick this up in a more appropriate venue.” 

As enticing as it sounds, there's something about this night that Yuki doesn't want to leave behind, as if by going home he'd be shattering something finite and delicate. 

So they end up on a bench, Kakeru's arm thrown around Yuki like it's nothing new, watching over the silent street, occasionally observing the odd passerby. 

"Do you ever wonder," Kakeru muses, "if people at this hour are awake already, or awake still?" 

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean like, look at him." He nods to a man across the street, whistling and swinging his keys while he ambles down the sidewalk. "Do you think he's already gotten a full night's sleep and he's on his way to work, or did he just get lucky with some girl he picked up at a bar and he's finally walking home for the night?" 

"I guess I've never thought of it like that." 

"I think that's why I like coming out here when it's like this," Kakeru continues. "You can be someone who's still awake and cross paths with someone who's awake already, and there's this kind of in-between space, you know?" 

Yuki nods, but he's not sure he gets it. 

"Okay, so, he looks pretty put together. Like he got dressed to go somewhere," Kakeru notes, referring back to the man across the street. "And not like he just picked his clothes up off the floor after a one-night stand."

"Okay?"

"So he's awake already. Maybe he works in like, tech or something, I don't know. He's got weird hours. He's on his way to work."

"Right."

"Now look at her." Yuki follows the jerk of Kakeru's chin to the other street corner, where a woman sways absently, digging through her purse. "What do you see?" 

"Well, she's carrying her shoes. That can't be sanitary," Yuki says. 

"Right? So she's probably wrapping up a night out, unless she makes a habit of walking to work shoeless."

Yuki is starting to understand. Kakeru pulls him closer, rubbing his shoulder gently with his chipped-polish-tipped fingers. 

While they watch, the sky shifts just slightly, violets and lavenders creeping up over the horizon. It's not sunrise, not nearly, but the first and barest indication that the night is coming to an end. Yuki is starting to fall asleep, Kakeru's jacket warm over his shoulders. "Come home with me," Kakeru murmurs before pressing an uncharacteristically gentle kiss to the soft skin below Yuki's ear. 

And maybe it's alright that Kakeru belongs to these hours after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "The Hours" by Hazel Hall: 
> 
> I have known hours built like cities,  
> House on grey house, with streets between  
> That lead to straggling roads and trail off,  
> Forgotten in a field of green;
> 
> Hours made like mountains lifting  
> White crests out of the fog and rain,  
> And woven of forbidden music—  
> Hours eternal in their pain.
> 
> Life is a tapestry of hours  
> Forever mellowing in tone,  
> Where all things blend, even the longing  
> For hours I have never known.
> 
> \--
> 
> Obligatory "my Tumblr is @floraltohru"
> 
> Thanks for reading!!


End file.
